The Factory Girl

by Maggie Ford

  Again the doorbell rang insistent now, being pressed several times in quick succession as though in frustration at being kept waiting, making her quicken her descent downstairs with a sudden sense of urgency. Names went through her mind faster than she could reach to open the door.

  Mum, Dad, Wally, there to say something dreadful had happened at home? Fenella – she’d seen Fenella just before Easter – had something happened there? Maybe not. Maybe only Tony coming back to apologise. If that were so, he’d be doing it to empty air. She wanted none of his apologies.

  In the breakfast room Sam Treater was reading The Times over his boiled egg; Lily was eating a piece of toast, the butter spread sparingly as she was watching her already slim figure. The dress she’d worn last night for dinner with friends had become just a tiniest bit tight across the hips, although she had only worn it the once before and, made to fit, it had been fine then.

  ‘I’ll have to cut out potatoes and cereal as well,’ she told Sam, having already complained of her problem.

  He lowered his paper to glance at her over the top. His scrutiny was appreciative, taking in the small breasts, suited to the current fashion, the flat stomach, both visible behind the open edges of her silk wrap.

  ‘You look fine. I’ve never gone much for skinny women, not enough to get me hands around. I like to feel something in me hands. So watch it, me love, or I’ll be looking for someone else.’

  He gave a short bellow of a laugh and returned to his newspaper, she pushing away the last of her tiny bit of toast regardless of his flattery, to inform him that she was off to get dressed and kiss the girls goodbye.

  Their two children attended private school, and having already finished their breakfast were upstairs getting into their uniforms; Sam’s chauffeur would be taking them.

  Alone now, Sam was pouring himself another cup of coffee when the maid came to say there was a man at the door. ‘He says his name’s Fred Jordan but he wouldn’t say what he wanted, only that he wanted to see you.’

  Sam’s eyes lit up expectantly. He put down the coffee jug and got up, wiping his thick lips on a napkin and dropping it onto the white tablecloth.

  ‘That’s all right, Maud, I’ll see him in the lounge.’

  That he was still in his dressing gown wouldn’t matter for Jordan wasn’t an important caller in that respect. He was an ordinary police constable but he might very well have something valuable to impart. There were several bent coppers who were in contact with him, each of them he made sure were well paid for their information. When Sam reached the lounge, the man, now in plain clothes, was already standing awkwardly in the centre of the room.

  Treater greeted him heartily, ‘You’re a bit early. We’ve only just had breakfast. Been on duty all night then?’ When the man shook his head, he asked him, ‘Had any breakfast?’ Again Jordan shook his head.

  ‘Want some?’

  There came another shake of the head. There were none of the cordial smiles he usually presented, cordial and ingratiating and greedy, knowing full well that any information he passed on would be well rewarded.

  Treater frowned. ‘Well, have a seat.’ He had all the time in the world, a man of leisure who could live well off his wits, who need never dirty his hands, letting others do that, he the brains – he and Billy Schulter.

  ‘How’s the wife and kiddie?’ he began, opening up a large silver cigar box as Jordan dutifully sat and, offering him one, took one for himself as the man politely refused.

  Snipping off its end, Treater, still standing to prove his authority, took his time lighting it from the table lighter. He gazed down at the man, his broad face lit by a friendly smile. ‘I don’t seem to have seen much of you lately. I even got to asking myself, has he forgotten us?’

  Jordan squirmed at the implication. ‘Bin a bit busy down at the station, Mr Treater. No time to breathe. But not much going on that’d interest your sort of work. Be of any worth to you, importance I mean.’

  ‘That’s all right, old man. Plenty of time to make us feel wanted again. So what’ve you come about that’s so important this early in the morning?’

  There was still no answering grin. The man licked his lips nervously. When he spoke, his tone was hesitant. ‘I don’t think the information I’ve got for you is something that’ll make you any too ’appy, Mr Treater. It ain’t my doing. I just thought you ought to be told about it.’

  Treater regarded him closely. Jordan’s mouth was one thin, straight line, the eyes in the square, heavy face, dark and full of foreboding.

  ‘What is it? What’s up? Come on, you’ll be well paid no matter what it is. Nothing’s gone wrong, has it? Have you had a tip-off or something?’

  It was this man who had first tipped them off about the consignment of bullion and had been well paid for it. His contact, someone in the company looking for a bit of extra money in these hard times, had also been well paid for his inside information, coupled with the threat that if he didn’t keep his mouth shut, the money wouldn’t be the only reward he’d get.

  Things had gone on from there that no longer concerned either man. They had no idea where the heist would be made after the van left for its destination. Treater saw it all in his mind’s eye, a lonely bit of road late at night in a few days’ time, a certain dark spot, little or no traffic that time of night, their own van waiting, blocking the road, forcing the approaching vehicle to stop, half a dozen men leaping from the bushes to surround it, hopefully the terrified driver and guard complying to the order to open up the back or get beaten up. A handgun waved in their faces would help to do the trick. A smoke bomb through the grill would bring the guard in the back stumbling out. All three tied up and harmless, the van brought to the side of the road, the other backed up to it, the bullion transferred, and away. Perfect. But Treater, seeing this man’s long face, felt apprehension creep over him. God, not now! Not at this late stage with everything so well in place.

  ‘So what is it?’ he demanded and saw Jordan reach into his breast pocket and draw out a sheet of paper, a police form, holding it out.

  ‘Didn’t want to use the telephone. Can’t trust them things. Could be overheard, y’know.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Treater. ‘So what’s this?’

  ‘Something reported to us yesterday. Luckily it was me took down the details. It’s self-explanatory. That’s why I needed to come here with it.’

  It took Treater seconds to realise the content. His face reddened then turned ashy. ‘Oh, Christ – Jesus Christ.’

  Treater’s heart was bumping like a clown on a trampoline as he glared down at Jordan, his face now thunderous enough to make the man’s eyelids twitch. ‘You bloody fool! Why the fucking hell didn’t you bring this to me straight away?’

  Jordan was fighting to steady his flickering eyelids, talking fast. ‘I couldn’t. I was on duty. Can’t just hop off duty like that. Raise suspicion.’ His voice had become an unbroken gabble. ‘Time I got away, got ’ere, you and your missus was gone out – to dinner the woman what answered said. I didn’t know what to do. I hung on till this morning. That’s why I’m so early. Thought you should know quick as possible, in case—’

  ‘In case, bloody nothing!’ roared Treater. ‘You should’ve telephoned.’

  ‘Others might of overheard me.’

  ‘From a bloody telephone booth.’

  ‘Not easy to’ve talked. Telephone exchange might of overheard.’

  ‘You could’ve said it in such a way they wouldn’t have caught on, you flaming idiot. But no, you had to wait until this morning, taking your bloody time about it. D’you know what you’ve done? If you’d done your stuff, I’d have not let out as much as I did to that effing stool pigeon Hanford. Because of your damned bungling you’ve landed me in the shit, you know that? Now what d’we do?’

  ‘I don’t know—’

  ‘Shut up!’ Jordan found himself towered over. ‘You steaming, useless idiot! Get out of here.’

  Seeing no reward t
his time and preferring not to hang around for it, lest it be something he’d rather not have, Jordan made to rise but was immediately pushed back down, the large face closing within inches of his, any escape trapped by two sturdy, dressing-gown-clad forearms supported by the chair arms on each side of him. The face, as much as he could see of it, was one huge snarl. ‘And you say one word of this – just one word – to anyone, you’ll find yourself without a tongue to say anything to anyone ever again. You understand?’

  Jordan allowed himself a nervous nod only to nearly jump his own height as ‘DO YOU BLOODY UNDERSTAND?’ was again bellowed one inch from his nose. Frantically he nodded, the threatened tongue cleaving aridly to the roof of his mouth.

  ‘SAY IT! Say “I understand, Mr Treater.”’

  ‘I understand, Mr Treater.’

  Sam withdrew his face. ‘Now get out.’

  The man ran like a scared rabbit, but no more scared than Sam Treater felt at this moment. It took hardly two seconds before he realised that he might be getting rid of a valuable source of information. Not easy to find a good one and Jordan, stupid as he’d been this time, was reliable. To cut off the nose to spite the face was the action of a fool.

  Dashing to the bureau, Treater whipped out a wad of large white notes, counted out five fivers, thrust the rest back into the drawer, hurried through the hall and flung open the front door just as Jordan was in the act of getting astride the motorcycle he’d come on.

  ‘Just a sec!’ bawled Treater and his fear for a second managed to melt into a grin as Jordan nearly fell off his vehicle seeing him stalking towards him. ‘Here.’ He had to grab the trembling hand to thrust the notes into it. ‘Remember what I said. Keep your trap shut.’

  This was as much a sweetener as anything else. The man would do as he was told, that he knew.

  ‘Yes, Mr Treater, sir,’ came the shaky reply. Glimpsing more than a single fiver being pressed into his palm, five to be exact, twenty-five nicker, he who seldom touched the richness of so many notes together unless for a favour given, a grin spread from ear to ear in gratitude and in relief that he hadn’t been about to be annihilated on the spot.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Treater. Thank you very much, sir.’

  A copper’s wages were forty bob a week if that, so twenty-five quid for giving a bit of information was a fortune, and being not such good news, amazing.

  ‘Don’t spend it all at once,’ Treater cautioned, ignoring the glistening greed in the man’s eyes. ‘Or put it all into a bank or post-office savings. Someone might get suspicious. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  The man’s palm had been greased. He’d say nothing, knowing which side his bread was buttered, but Sam was already on his way back indoors, still far from happy, his chest heaving with apprehension, his mind working.

  Billy Schulter’s arrival at his house was so quick after the phone call that Sam could easily have believed Billy to have sprouted wings.

  ‘I can’t believe he’d do a thing like that,’ said Billy on being told what had happened. ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s got scared, that’s why. Bastard’s looking to shop us all.’

  ‘But why?’ demanded Billy again, spreading his hands. ‘If it’s reward money he’s looking for, he stands to get more from us for doing a job than anything he’d get from the police. Besides, it don’t make sense when he knows he’d be implicating himself as well.’

  ‘Not necessarily. All he needed to say was he got wind of a heist, and then beat it.’

  ‘But it was her who went to the police, not him.’

  ‘Using her. Not got the guts to do it himself. And if he’s so bloody innocent, why didn’t he come and warn us what she did? It proves he had a hand in it.’

  ‘Maybe he don’t even know,’ William Schulter mused, nibbling at his lip. ‘She could’ve gone behind his back. You can’t condemn the bloke before you really know.’

  ‘It don’t matter. Someone’s grassed, and that’s all I’m interested in.’

  Billy picked up the incomplete police report. ‘It just says here that a Mrs Hanford reported her husband as a receiver of stolen goods, that’s all.’

  ‘He knows us, and that’s enough. He’s been told his part in this job and he can shop us all. And he sat there yesterday afternoon smiling and grinning like a bloody vicar, and all the time he knew what he’d done, the bastard!’

  Billy was still scanning the report. ‘The time here says it was reported at three in the afternoon. According to you, Hanford was here around that time.’

  ‘He could’ve gone there before coming here.’

  ‘And been here in under ten minutes? Christ, he’d have had to drive at over seventy miles an hour and no one can do that, don’t matter how big a car it is. It has to be her who’s scared, not him. And I still believe he’s got no notion of what she’s done. I think we’re going to have to pay her a visit, see how much she does know about us. Right now! What d’you think?’

  Tony had been in a quandary after leaving Sam’s house without seeing him. What if he blamed him for all this? And all because of Geraldine.

  He shouldn’t have gone off at her like that. He should have stopped to think, get the whole thing from her, how much she’d told the police. He’d been stupid telling her anything about this job in the first place but he had been so excited about the money he would get and what they’d do with it. That was of course before she’d been told about Di Manners. That bloody bitch Cynthia!

  He’d turned his motor in the direction of Di’s home to lay this trouble at her feet. She would understand, give advice, soothe, where Geraldine would only have ranted and raged and called him a fool.

  As he expected, Di had received him with concern and sympathy. Making love helped take away some of his fear but lying in bed beside her, unable to sleep at three in the morning, it had all come back. He should have given that maid or whatever she was at least some indication that his call had been a matter of urgency concerning certain things. Sam would have got the message instantly. He’d have been alerted, would have got on the phone to him straight away and something would have been done about it. He should have gone home to await that call instead of racing off here but he hadn’t exactly been in charge of his wits.

  ‘I should go back there early tomorrow morning,’ he murmured and heard Di give a contented sigh.

  ‘Yes, perhaps you should, darling.’

  She turned over and wrapped a slim, bare arm about his naked chest. ‘It wasn’t your fault, my darling. You couldn’t have known what your wife was going to do, so how could you have stopped her?’

  Tony took the arm and raised it to his lips, kissing the warm flesh. ‘What worries me most is that they might say I’m not trustworthy and find someone else to melt down the stuff.’

  He’d confided a good deal of it to her when he’d first known about it, talking of the money he would get out of it and what he would buy her.

  Now, of course, things had changed between him and Geraldine and it would be with Di that he would go abroad on the money and live like a lord. After all, his cut of the two million Sam had spoken about wouldn’t be peanuts. Without him smelting down the haul they wouldn’t be able to move it. Not easy to shift stuff like that in its original state.

  ‘I could kill her,’ he went on, thinking about Geraldine. ‘She could ruin everything.’

  Di gently freed her hand from the pressure of his lips and it began to slowly travel down his torso and his stomach with a light touch that set him tingling. ‘They wouldn’t dare drop you, my love. You know too much. No, they’ll be annoyed, my sweet, no doubt about that, but they know which side their bread is buttered.’

  She stopped fondling him and sat up abruptly. ‘You know what I think? If your wife had really spilled the beans to the police yesterday afternoon, don’t you think they’d have swooped by the time you got there? They wouldn’t have let any moss grow under their feet over something like that, now would they?’

  He had
to admit she was right. Perhaps not much harm had been done after all. But he would still go there first thing tomorrow. Di had begun to caress him again, taking away all thoughts but those of her as he felt himself rise and fill, and for the second time that night had Di take him to the realms of paradise, twice in a single night, something Geraldine had never been able to do.

  Next morning around six-thirty he left Chelsea and made straight for Sam’s home near Vauxhall Bridge. A maid answered, left him standing there for a moment then came back to say that Mrs Treater had said Mr Treater and his colleague Mr Schulter had left early without saying where they were going. All Tony could do was turn his motor car in the direction of his home and have things out with Geraldine.

  He needed to clear the air, needed to put his cards on the table. What she’d done had been the last straw in their marriage. He was through with her. She was dangerous. The more he thought about her going to the police the more scared he became as he drove through West London.

  He couldn’t wait to be out of this business, be safe for the rest of his life. Once this job was done, and he was sure he’d still be required to do it, he and Di would take a long holiday out of the country. He’d have plenty of money by then. The business could take care of itself. Geraldine could manage that, she often had when he wasn’t there, and she’d have Bell to help her. Later he’d settle a good allowance on her. He wouldn’t want to see her go short once the divorce was settled. He wasn’t that vindictive even if she was.

  Thank Christ she didn’t know where he kept his smelter. Only those he worked with knew. The bullion would be taken there by van late at night, unseen in the total darkness of the Rainham marshes. It would take ages, of course, to melt down that much and he’d have to sleep there.

  But after that he’d go home to Di, lie low until he got his cut, a substantial one Treater had promised, enough to retire on. Then with the money he and Di could live in luxury somewhere abroad.